Michelin-Star Heaven Costs $650 for One at Oslo’s Maaemo

By Richard Vines -
Mar 3, 2013

I wouldn’t describe Maaemo as
expensive. That would hardly cover it.

Dinner with matching wines for one in this Oslo restaurant
costs 3,250 kroner ($570). There’s no choice on the menu, and
almost all diners take the drinks pairing. Add an aperitif,
water, coffee, taxes and service, and you exceed $650. OK, I’ll
admit: I tipped less than 10 percent to keep the price down.

You might think Maaemo is for the very rich and/or the very
stupid. If so, there are a lot of us. It’s tough to get a table,
and I didn’t spot anyone in the dining room sporting bling or a
dunce’s cap. They were mostly quiet middle-aged people like
myself. I wasn’t saying much (apart from the occasional “wow”)
because I was alone.

The food, fortunately, is sublime. The 10-course menu runs
to 26 plates, if you include the canapes etc. (Elsewhere, these
extras are termed “freebies”: The word hardly applies here.)
The pairings are inspired, and the service is faultless.

Maaemo, which opened in December 2010, landed two Michelin
stars last year. Michelin’s 2013 assessment is due later this
month. The chef, Esben Holmboe Bang -- a Dane -- is 30 years
old. “Maaemo” means “Mother Earth,” or “all that is
living” in old Norse, according to Bang.

Glass Kitchen

Maaemo is housed in a new office building on the wrong side
of the tracks -- near the city’s central railway station. It’s
hushed and dark, and every table is illuminated by a spotlight.
Candles are dotted around a room that seats 25 to 30. The
kitchen is in a glass box on a mezzanine overlooking the diners.

Ingredients are predominantly from Norway or the Nordic
region. Your waiter can tell you the area, the supplier, and
sometimes even the farm where they’re from. The meal begins with
as many as 10 small plates before you get to the first course.

These appetizers may include frozen cow’s milk; salsify
pickled in juniper; red-cabbage gel with horseradish; a
traditional porridge with reindeer heart and brown butter; a
cornet of chicken liver cream with dried chanterelle gel;
grilled cucumber and parsley; and an oyster emulsion served in a
beautiful dish with oyster shells. The presentation of each
plate is striking.

Spruce Juice

The first course of two langoustines with a glaze of
pickled spruce juice comes atop a rock and cuttings of spruce,
with spruce smoke.

Two of the four hand-dived scallops from Norway’s west
coast that follow come as a mousseline, with sea buckthorn. They
are served with Sydre Argelette Eric Bordelet 2011, a cider made
by chef Alain Passard’s former sommelier at Arpege.

Bread is a course in itself, served on a warm millstone
together with Bogedal Hvede 2012 wheat beer from Denmark with
orange peel and coriander seeds. Celeriac & apple is followed by
cod with aquavit jelly, charred shallots and cheese-fat jus,
then potatoes with mutton-infused butter.

Noma, Ego

This may all sound rather a lot to eat -- I’ve skipped a
few of the plates for brevity -- and I wouldn’t recommend Maaemo
for those short on passion for gastronomy. This is cooking at
the highest level, and it’s cooking with no ego: Search the
website all you want, you won’t find the name of the chef.

When you think of what $650 could buy you, dinner for one
might not figure. (If it did, how about a round-trip air fare
and a visit to Noma -- the world’s best restaurant -- where
dinner with wine costs $440, including tax?)

Yet I do hope to go back to Maaemo. This is a chef with a
unique voice surrounded by a team with which he is in harmony.

The Bloomberg Questions

Cost? The set menu is 1,900 kroner ($333); the drinks
pairing is 1,350 kroner ($236) plus taxes and service.

Sound level? Below 70 decibels. You can hear your jaw drop.

Inside tip? Book early.

Special feature? It’s one of the best restaurants in the
world and it’s in Norway. What could be more special?

(Richard Vines is the chief food critic for Muse, the arts
and leisure section of Bloomberg News. He is U.K. and Ireland
chairman of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards. Opinions
expressed are his own.)